The Emptiness Project
The experience of emptiness is different from feeling empty.
Emptiness is the result of clearing past trauma from the body and preventing re-enactment in the mind. When you first experience emptiness, it may feel uncomfortable, like the loss of yourself. But what you are feeling is the loss of the physical response of trauma. You will notice that your mind wants to immediately fill up this empty space.
The impulse to grasp for something, what you are most accustomed to reaching for, will be strong. It is best to refrain from this impulse and instead sit with your discomfort. Take the time to identify the automatic impulses that lead you to habitual behaviors formed in the past. The discovery of what is on the other side is the dynamic that leads to soul evolvement and the experience of emptiness.
If you are a person who is used to “doing” and have trained yourself to always be accomplishing something, you can redirect your mind to seek emptiness. Make a list of all the things you have accomplished, then tell your mind that the experience of emptiness is something you haven’t achieved yet. The accomplishment of emptiness can be your next project.
For many, emptiness is an unfamiliar experience. We haven’t learned to find comfort in it. Like any new experience, we need to move into it with curiosity and a sense of adventure. We need to be willing to challenge ourselves to move beyond what feels normal.
Being with emptiness requires presence. Resist letting your mind take you into the “what’s next” of the future.
For those eager to evolve, we know that finding barriers leads us to moving beyond them. Barriers are the lines we don’t easily cross. They are the automatic stop signs in place that originate from difficult past experiences. If we never move beyond them, we will end up repeating the same behaviors, keeping us stuck in the same thought, the same feeling, and the same outcome.
Photograph by Jessica Johnston
